if we let go
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: Because Rose deserves a choice, even if she has to carve it out for herself. (Dedicated to travelingrose on tumblr; this version is sfw, but the wish-fulfillment version can be found on ao3 and teaspoon)
1. prologue

"So," she says, grinning up at him; it's fitting, she thinks, that her first word to this new him should be such a small and inconsequential thing.

He beams back down at her. "So."

"One of us now, eh?"

The new Doctor shrugs. "Slouch around the universe for long enough, eventually a downgrade is inevitable."

Rose elbows him in the ribs for that and he feigns outrage, but there's no missing the glimmer of laughter in his eyes.

The two of them fall silent, watching the other passengers of the TARDIS as they chat around the console. Jackie bids Sarah Jane farewell, Donna laughs with Jack, Mickey talks with Martha—or more accurately, _flirts_ with her, because there's no mistaking that bashful smile of his, or the way his eyes constantly flicker down toward his feet, as if there's something terribly interesting to look at down on the grating. An old flame flickers briefly in Rose's chest, a ragged shadow of something she would have called _jealousy_ once upon a time, but it soon transmutes into something else. Less of an angry-sputtering ember, more of a warm glow; she may have exchanged only a few words with Martha, but it was enough to know she likes her.

And Martha clearly likes Mickey, if her own mischievous smile is anything to go by. Rose's grin grows tender. Already they seem to fit together perfectly. Good for them.

"Does it hurt?" she asks. When the new Doctor doesn't immediately reply, arching an eyebrow in question, Rose turns to him to better explain. "Being human, I mean. Just having the one heart and all."

He considers. "Not in the way you'd think," he says softly.

Rose thinks about grabbing his hand, reaches for it, even, imagining how she'll entwine their fingers together like they used to. But she falters, grabbing the railing behind them instead. She doesn't know why.

"Yeah," she replies.

* * *

"And how was that sentence going to end?" she demands later, on the beach—that godforsaken beach, she'll never be rid of it, not if she lives to be a hundred—and the original Doctor has the audacity, has the utter bloody _gall_ , to just stand there, looking sad and stern and unbearably pathetic, as if she's the one making this stupid decision—as if she's the one leaving him.

"Does it need saying?" he asks, and Rose's blood boils in her veins.

Years of work, months of searching, dozens of close-calls and barely-there's and raised hopes dashed ruthless and bloody on the rocks, and this is what she gets? This infuriating half-conversation, this heartless rejection, these ice-cold tears yet again on this stupid damn _beach_?

Rose tears herself away to look at the other Doctor, her pulse thundering so loudly in her ears she can barely hear herself over its frantic rush. "And you, Doctor?" she asks. "What was the end of that sentence?"

She doesn't expect him to answer, not really—same memories, same thoughts, same everything; that means the same noncommittal replies and same half-cooked endearments and same unspoken sentiments, doesn't it?—so imagine her surprise when he starts in before she's even finished speaking, leaning so that he can murmur in her ear. One hand presses to her arm like he can't hold himself back from touching her, like she's the anchor holding him to this plane.

 _Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…_

"It's still your choice, Rose," he says, quietly, so that only she can hear. "And no matter what you decide—"

A brief pause. He swallows nervously. "—just know I love you either way."

The words send Rose's head spinning worse than if she'd just gone on a bender or got off a carousel gone mad.

 _We're falling through space, you and me_.

It doesn't actually answer her question, but it's the closest she's ever gotten from him, on _any_ important question, in _any_ incarnation. And suddenly she can't stand the distance between them anymore, the inches so vast they might as well be an entire universe, and her body seems to move of its own accord, blessedly working much quicker than her reeling mind. She yanks him down by the jacket-lapels for a demanding kiss, and it isn't the way she always imagined it, not the way she would have planned—possibly she's bruised the inside of her own mouth with the force of his lips slamming into hers, she's bound to be sore there later—but her heart still hammers painfully in her throat and her eyes still shutter closed, overwhelmed by an onslaught of emotion and screaming sensory input.

(He looks like the Doctor and he sounds like him, too, but he smells like soap and sweat and soot, tastes like salt and skin, feels like a supernova. His arms wrap around her, his grip far more desperate than his words ever were, and Rose cinches her eyes against the welling tears, because this, _this_ is what she wanted; why did she have to fight so hard to get it?)

Dimly, she registers the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing behind her, and before she knows it, her feet have pulled her away, parting from the stunned Doctor with a gasp.

He's leaving. He's leaving her without even saying goodbye.

(No, she thinks firmly; he's not.)

Stumbling backward, Rose propels herself toward the TARDIS, straining for the doors before it's too late—

At the latest of last possible seconds, she reaches back for the Doctor's hand, tugging him along with her—

She doesn't have to tell him to _Run_.


	2. chapter one

The word _Felspoon_ has just left Donna's mouth and that's only the second-strangest thing that's happened this millisecond, because the TARDIS doors swing open and slam shut and when the Doctor glances over, Rose and his other self and suddenly inside instead of out.

Blood drains from the Doctor's face, leaving him shocked with cold.

"No," he mutters, blinking in disbelief. He shakes his head like the motion will dislodge the stowaways from his vision, but his sight is a Polaroid photo and they just come into sharper relief. The Doctor pushes off his coral strut leaning-post, advancing toward Rose before he has a chance to think better of it.

"Doctor—"

"No," he says, sharply this time, the word harsh even to his own ears. He points to the doors behind her. "Get out."

Stunned, Rose falters. "What?"

"You heard me," says the Doctor, anger and adrenaline and fear racing through his veins, because she can't be here, not after he just sent her away, not after he just made one of the worst decisions in any of his cursedly long lives. "You've got to get out. You can't be here, Rose. I've already made up my mind."

"I'm sorry—you've made up your mind?"

"Yep! We both have, actually," interjects Donna. "Though I suppose we should have known better—he keeps sending you away, but you never seem to stay there, do you?"

The Doctor shoots her a dirty look and she just shrugs. "What? You can't honestly be surprised."

"We're not," says the other Doctor tiredly.

"Stop it," the Doctor snaps. "There's no _we_ in this equation, understand?" Glaring at each of them in turn, he continues, "No _we_ , no _us_ , no _I_ in _team_ but there is a _me_ and that's all that matters here, just me, and _my_ ship, and _my_ rules that I put in place for very specific reasons, very good reasons—"

"Cos you just get to make the decisions for everyone?" asks Rose.

"Yes!" the Doctor shouts, and everyone in the room jumps.

Rose crosses her arms, staring steely-eyed at him. "Yeah, that's a problem."

Huffing in frustration, the Doctor turns on his heel, back toward Donna and the console—he hasn't got the time for this, Donna hasn't got the time, and at any rate, he's got to hold onto this anger, got to stave off the crumbling of his resolve for as long as he possibly can, and the more he looks at Rose, the more difficult that gets.

"Well, it doesn't really matter at this point, does it?" he asks through gritted teeth. "Too late to turn back—the holes have sealed up properly, no returning now. So I suppose congratulations are in order—you've successfully stowed away, against my express wishes, never to see your mother or brother or father again, and you did it just in time to watch Donna die!"

The other Doctor's head snaps to attention, and Rose's mouth falls open in shock. An uncomfortable silence settles over the room, thick and heavy, rife with static, the air before a thunderstorm.

Laughing, Donna waves one hand dismissively. "Oh, don't listen to him," she says, fiddling with buttons on the console. "He's exaggerating for dramatic effect. I'm fine. There's just a little wrench in the works, is all. Just a hitch. A hiccup." She pulls a switch with a flourish, a cheerful smile plastered on her face. "A pickup. A pickaxe. An axel," she continues, shooting the new Doctor a wink. "A castle. A passel. A vassal. A vessel. A mortar and pestle. A Nessalemian Chamber floating off the Isle of Baroo. An igloo. A hullabaloo—"

A sharp intake of breath cuts her words in half and she stops, eyes blown wide. Donna looks up at Rose with the ghost of a pleading grin, but the Doctor notices that she won't meet his eyes—not for either of him in the room. Rose glances over his way, and he can see in his periphery that her gaze is full of concern. He ignores it.

"Donna?" Rose asks cautiously. "Are you all right?"

"'Course I am," Donna lies with a watery chuckle. "Never been better. Nice of you to worry about me, though."

Leaning in, she says, in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "He'd never say it, but he always liked it when you worried about him."

"And how do you know that?" the Doctor asks.

"Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine!"

He locks eyes with his other self. The other Doctor does not look away; it's unnerving, the sensation of watching your reflection blinc a second out of sync with you.

"And how does that feel?" the other Doctor asks, his voice soft.

"Brilliant. Fantastic. Molto bene!" cries Donna. "Great big universe, packed into my brain. You know, you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hotbinding the fragment links and superseding the binary—binary—binary binary binary—"

The Doctor closes his eyes. Gods, he wishes he could close his ears, too, that he couldn't hear Donna's life force draining away with every passing attosecond, her voice rising in pitch as life drips out of her like water _plinking_ from a leaky faucet. She's a broken record, now, the needle jumping furiously over the same vinyl groove in perfect metronome, regardless of the friction ( _fiction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton_ —)

Donna sucks in a ragged lungful of air. She sounds like she might be sick. "Oh, my god," she whimpers, slumping over the console.

The Doctor frowns as Rose dashes to Donna's side, steadying her with a hand to the bicep. "All right," Rose says firmly. "We're getting you to the medbay—can you walk?"

"That isn't going to help, Rose," says the other Doctor.

"Well, it's better than just standing here, doing nothing," Rose retorts. "Come on, get over here and help me—both of you!"

Neither Doctor moves. Looping Donna's arm around her shoulders, Rose glances between the two Doctors, growing more incredulous with each passing second. "Now!" she shouts.

"Do you know what's happening?" the other Doctor asks Donna.

She nods miserably. "Yeah."

"There's never been a human-Time Lord metacrisis before," says the Doctor. "And you know why."

"Because there can't be," Donna whispers.

"That's not true," Rose hisses. "Or—I don't know, maybe it is. But whatever's going on, we can fix it. We just have to _try_." She inches toward the medbay, her free hand clasping Donna by the waist as she shuffles along. "Or don't you remember what _trying_ is?" she shoots over her shoulder.

"What's the point when it won't make a difference?" snaps the Doctor. "You're only delaying the inevitable—either her memories go, or she does."

"Bollocks!"

The Doctor's eyebrow shoots up in surprise. "Beg your pardon?"

"You just said it yourself, there's never been a human-Time Lord meta-thingy before," Rose grits out, heaving with effort as she half-helps, half-drags Donna down the hall. "So how do you know what's gonna happen?"

The Doctor looks to his other self for help, hands spread open in a silent plea, but the traitorous half-human just responds with a shrug. "She's got a point," he admits, darting over to support Donna from the other side.

"No," says the Doctor angrily, hands balling into fists as panic rises in his throat. "No, no, _no_! You're wasting all the time she's got left!" he shouts at their retreating forms. "If we don't extract the foreign elements now, she's dead—we haven't got time for anything else!"

"We're Time Lords," his other self replies. "We'll make the time."

Approximately 3.17 seconds pass as the Doctor, frozen in place, watches the three humans stumble down the corridor, getting further away from him with every labored step. On a better day, Rose and his other self may have fared better supporting Donna between them, but Rose clearly hasn't slept for days, the other Doctor exhausted from the trauma of regeneration, and progress is slow, stumbling.

They're not going to get Donna to the medbay in time.

Silently, the Doctor curses them both—they don't understand, but then, how could they? They aren't cursed with his gift; they can't pluck stray timelines out of the air and skip to the end, read how the fairy tale ends; they'll just follow the breadcrumbs and end up at the gingerbread house regardless, warnings and common-sense be damned.

(Even his other self doesn't get it—are his senses really so dulled? Could he really be so _human_?)

From far away, he hears Donna slip and fall, pulling Rose down with her. A scuffle, a curse, a shout, and Rose is yelling for Donna to wake up.

 _Right on schedule_ , the Doctor thinks miserably, swallowing the lump of anxiety lodged in his gullet.

"Doctor!" cries Rose. "Help!"

Her voice cuts through him, sets him trembling with indecision. Probably she's talking to the other one, the one closer to her, the one who so foolishly stepped forward to help like it would actually do anything— _the one who trusted her_ , the Doctor tries not to think—but the thought that she might need him still tugs at something deep in his gut, still sends his body screaming for her.

The Doctor bites his lip so hard he could draw blood.

Damn it. Damn it all.

"You, help me," he says roughly to the other Doctor as he surges forward, bending down to scoop Donna's limp body off the floor. "And you," he says to Rose, voice sharp, "Stay out of the way."

He only glimpses Rose's face long enough to see it darken with hurt. "Like hell I will."

"Yeah," mutters the Doctor, and his other self rushes to his aid, supporting the unconscious Donna between them, "I know."


	3. chapter two

A thready beep-beep, beep-beep fills the medbay, and the room's three conscious inhabitants can all breathe again.

"82 over 57," says the Doctor, his fingers pressed to the pulse point bleating softly under the skin beneath Donna's jaw. He may be a mere human now, but this, at least, he can still do; all those memories of studying humanoid bodies and memorizing how they work didn't just vanish into the ether. That's something, at least.

His original self sits atop a stool on the other side of the examination table, cutting through Donna's jacket sleeve with a pair of medical scissors. The Doctor hides a smile at the thought of the fit Donna would throw if she knew. Afterward, his original self swabs the inside of Donna's elbow with antiseptic, punctuating the air with a stench pungent and harsh and chemical, and before his original self has a chance to ask for it, the Doctor crosses the medbay in several long strides, fishing the supplies for an IV and saline drip out of the cabinets.

"Will she be all right?" asks Rose.

His original self doesn't answer.

"Too early to tell at this juncture," the Doctor says, honestly. "My—"

He silently curses himself. Personal pronouns right now are…confusing.

" _His_ telepathic blocks should help for a while," he says. "Keep her in stasis while we run some tests and look into extracting the stuff that shouldn't be in her mind."

 _Shouldn't be in your mind, either_ , a small voice pipes up in the back of his mind. _But then again,_ you _shouldn't be here at all._

"We'll do everything we can," the Doctor continues, rigging up the IV station. He sends Rose a reassuring smile. "We may actually have a small chance at keeping her original memories intact, thanks to you."

He glances up to see Rose smiling just the littlest bit, and that shuts the voice in his head right down, because how could it not? She's real, she's in this universe again, she's safe, she's _here_. With him. (And on-purpose, as well; she could have left him on that beach in the other universe without a second thought, and maybe he even would have deserved it. But she took his hand anyway, and even if it doesn't mean anything in the end, he's deeply grateful.) His pitiful single heart swells almost painfully in his chest and the Doctor is suddenly very glad he's not the one hooked up to the heartrate monitor, that no one can hear his galloping pulse ringing out through the room.

"Just the smallest chance, mind," he says quickly, handing the IV tube and needle back to his original self. "But, y'know. Better than no chance at all."

"Except that there's no fallback here," his original self mutters. Rose and the Doctor watch as he pushes the IV needle into Donna's flesh, medical precision executed to perfection by well-practiced hands. "If I fail at this, if my telepathic blocks don't hold up, if the scans are inconclusive or I can't locate equipment sophisticated enough for the kind of extraction we need—which is highly likely, by the way, something I don't expect her to know but you—" he says pointedly to the Doctor, voice hitching, "—you should have been well aware-of, even if your senses are irreparably compromised—if any of that falls through, Donna's good as dead."

"Well what else were we supposed to do?" Rose demands, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Just stand there?"

"Yes. Well, no, you shouldn't have been there at all. But that aside, you should have listened to me—just once, you should have listened—and left Donna to my care, so I could remove the offending element without risking her life."

"You mean remove her memories," the Doctor replies. "Not just the ones she inherited from me. A huge chunk of hers as well."

Rose barks out a short laugh in disbelief. "You've got to be joking."

The Doctor shakes his head. "Everything she's seen, everything she's done, everything she's become during our time together, it would all have to go."

"Either that, or she dies," says the original Doctor, taping the IV tube to Donna's arm with perhaps a little more force than is necessary, though there's no chance Donna can feel it right now. "Human minds aren't built to store Time Lord memories. There's nothing else to it. It's a rubbish decision, but someone's got to make it."

"And that someone's always you," Rose replies bitterly.

The Doctor watches as his original self ignores Rose in favor of tidying up his materials, gathering antiseptic and medical tape and stray cotton balls onto a tray. A muscle twinges in his cheek and suddenly the Doctor can foresee just how quickly this conversation is going to speed downhill, careening on rickety wheels until it smashes into a ravine down below. He doesn't need his dwindling time-sense to predict that.

"Well, I guess it's some comfort that I'm not the only one you make life-altering decisions for," Rose says under her breath.

The original Doctor rips off his medical gloves and throws them to the floor with a _smack_. "Maybe if you lot made better choices, I wouldn't have to make them for you."

"Right. So tell me, do you do this for all the important people in your life, or is it just the women you want to control?"

"I'm not the villain here," the Doctor snaps, fixing Rose with a sharp glare. "And it's wildly unfair to paint me as such. And it's that sort of unyielding, myopic, ridiculously narrow-sighted tendency that renders you unable to accept that some things are just impossible, that blinds you so that you can't see any of the surrounding forest for one small tree, that utterly strips you of the capability to process even the simplest—"

"You have no idea what I'm capable of!" Rose shouts, and the Doctor watches as she furiously blinks back tears, refusing to let them wet her cheeks. The other Doctor's eyes widen in surprise, but Rose pushes on. "You don't know, because you never asked. Did it even occur to you just how long it took me to get back, how hard I fought, everything I had to do? No, you don't know anything about it, you're just sitting there, just thinking, _That's Rose Tyler, just the way I left her_. But that's not me, Doctor. That isn't who I am, not anymore."

Gasping for breath, Rose combs her fingers through her hair, eyes clenching shut. "I'm not just some broken-hearted, addle-brained human child, I'm not just some unsophisticated ape who's too stupid to consider things like consequences, and I'm not interested in the word _impossible_ anymore. It sort of loses its meaning after you've seen the end of everything, after you've jumped from one universe to another to another to another, after you've seen dozens of other worlds and still, none of them is yours, none of them is what you're looking for, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try but you can't stop, you can't and you _won't_. You stop caring about impossible after you've seen the stars go out and come right back, after you've witnessed humanity at its very worst and utter best all in the same damn day—after you've stopped a soldier from dying on the battlefield even after your team is telling you it's useless, she's good as gone, _just leave her_.

"And then—" Rose says, her voice shaking, lips twisting with the effort of damming back emotions that the Doctor suspects she hasn't let loose for a long, long time now, "—then you watch the man you love more than anything die, right in front of you. Twice."

His original self looks away. But the Doctor doesn't; he's frozen, torn between the intense desire to run off and the burning need to cross the room and envelope Rose in his arms until he's crushed away the memories of everything that ever hurt her. He can feel her pain like it's his own, aching in his chest and stinging in his throat.

(Is this what it means to share a heart with Donna? Compassion ramped up exponentially, emotions absorbed like a sponge, empathy flying off the charts and breaking the meters until mercury spills on the floor and poisons everyone in its proximity? Or is this just what it means to be human?)

"Then," Rose says quietly, "after all that, after he comes back to life and everything you worked for is so close you can almost touch it, you've practically got it in your hands—after all that, he says no." She bites her lip to stop it from quivering. "Well, I say _too bad_."

She falls silent, mouth pursed in a thin line. Shut tight like a trap so nothing else can escape.

(The quiet in the room is deafening; even the bleat of Donna's pulse isn't enough to cut through the sense of suffocation.)

Scrubbing a hand over his face, the original Doctor heaves a sigh. The Doctor swears the lines around his counterpart's eyes have deepened in these last few minutes; in this moment, he looks every single one of his 900+ years.

"It was never an option, you staying," he hears his original self say. "I'm sorry, Rose. There's no place for you here."

The Doctor feels sick at the words, and wonders if he's ever hated himself as much as he does right now.

Rose's eyelashes flutter once, twice, like her physiology is struggling against everything her ears just took in. But soon her features compose themselves, settling coolly into a perfectly neutral mask. Her face betrays nothing. Even her eyes have gone blank. It's like looking at a smaller, blonder version of his ninth self, even down to the leather jacket. Battle-weary, cold, broken and willing to do anything, _anything_ , to pull himself back together.

(Except he had Rose to pick up the pieces, stitch them up into a shape resembling a person once again. Surely it's the least he can do, to repay the favor. He's struck with the realization of just how badly he wants to.)

Wordlessly, Rose stalks past the two Doctors, leaving the medbay without so much as a glance behind.

Funny, the Doctor thinks. She's only been back for a day, and already, the room feels empty without her in it.

"Don't."

The Doctor frowns at his original self. "Don't what? I didn't do anything."

"You didn't have to." The original Doctor taps the side of his head. "I already know."

"Well, someone's got to talk to her."

"What's the point? She won't understand."

The Doctor watches the doorway where Rose vanished, as if maybe, if he looks hard enough, she'll walk back through it. "Probably not," he concedes. "But still—she's right to be angry."

His original self pushes back from Donna and the examination table, rifling through the medbay cabinets and drawers until he finds what he's looking for—a medical transceiver. "Is she?" he asks, slapping the device on Donna's wrist. "If she really knew what was best for her—"

"Best for her, or best for you?"

The original Doctor glares at him. The Doctor taps the side of his head.

 _I already know_.

Shoulders slumping, his original self returns his attentions to Donna. "I've still got a lot of tests to run here," he says, voice clipped. "And I think it would be best if I did it alone."

Already the Doctor is on his way out.


	4. chapter three

Rose double-checks her watch and sighs, bare feet dangling restlessly in the pool. Fifty-six hours. It's been fifty-six hours, to the minute, since she last slept. Funny, though, she doesn't feel sleepy at all. She just feels…drained. Depleted, fruit tossed into the wringer and squeezed free of its juices and pulp until nothing but a husk is left. Empty.

"So is he saying all those things to push me away," Rose asks upon hearing footsteps behind her, "or does he really mean them?"

Silence. "Yes," is the eventual reply.

Rose chuckles mirthlessly. She's not sure what else she expected him to say, question like that.

"Do you mean them, too?" she asks anyway.

Louder footsteps let her know he's approaching; out of the corner of her eye, his trainers come into view, red and cleaner than usual and stopping just at the edge of the pool. "It's been a long day," the Doctor's voice says, so softly it's hard to believe it's the same voice that cut so cruelly just moments before. "Long and complicated. For everyone."

"That doesn't really answer my question."

"No," the Doctor sighs. "It really doesn't, does it?"

Toeing off his trainers and socks, one after the other, the Doctor plunks down next to Rose, his gangly long legs folding over the poolside until his feet reach the water, dipping beneath. His movement in the water sends ripples sailing outward until they hit Rose, lapping against her calves.

(He has sat himself very close to her; she wonders if he did it on purpose, or if it's still second nature, the lack of personal space between them.)

Rose nods toward his feet. "Fancy the feeling of wet trousers?"

"Mm?"

"You didn't roll them up. They're gonna get wet."

"So they are."

Rose watches at the Doctor's toes wriggle, the image distorted beneath the water-surface like video on a patchy analog screen. "I imagine that'll be unpleasant when it happens," the Doctor says.

"Yeah. Cold, for one thing."

"Oh, yes. And drippy."

"And heavy."

"And heavy, too, can't forget that. Clingy, as well."

Rose worries her lip between her teeth. "Maybe they're not the only thing that's clingy."

"True, they're also a big snug in the bum, aren't they?"

"No, I meant—well, yeah, that too, but—"

"Rose Tyler," says the Doctor with a grin, "have you been looking?"

It's impossible not to smile at him when he's looking at her like that, and that is one _impossible_ Rose believes in. But her smile fades as quickly as it came on, as Rose's hand travels up from the poolside to hover near the Doctor's face, hesitating just below his chin. Her fingertips itch to follow the constellations formed by his freckles, trace the sharp line of his jaw.

(How would he react, she wonders, if she cupped her hand around his cheek right now—would he crack a silly joke, or stutter and leave, or close his eyes, lean into her touch, turn his face to press his lips against her palm?

Would the other Doctor react the same way?)

"You're exactly the same," Rose murmurs, her hand falling away. "Except that's not quite true, is it?"

"Technically," says the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm still me, though, just me stuffed into a human suit." He tilts his head, thinking. "A human suit with some suspiciously Donna-like qualities."

"Like?"

"Stick around and you'll find out," he replies with a wink.

Normally that would set Rose grinning like an idiot, but instead her hands fidget restlessly in her lap. "Do you really think she has a chance? I didn't—I didn't make things worse for Donna, did I?"

"No. Once the metacrisis event was initiated, there was no stopping the degradation of her mind." The Doctor laughs, and it's a surprisingly nasty sound. "And the person responsible for that certainly isn't you."

Curious, Rose almost asks what he means by that, but thinks better of it—his candor has always got limits, and she suspects they just reached them. They sit quietly for a few moments, listening to the gentle tinkle of water lapping lazily in the pool, splashing against their shins as their feet swing back and forth. The Doctor nudges Rose's foot with his, probably on accident. She nudges back anyway. He bumps her again, purposefully this time, and she sneaks her foot beneath his, locking them both by the ankles.

She smiles. "I win."

"Hmm," says the Doctor, thoughtful. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Well, winning implies a game, doesn't it? And _game_ implies _rules_ , and _players_ , and a _prize_ , none of which have been discussed or agreed-upon."

"Okay, a prize," Rose laughs. "Like what?"

"Well," says the Doctor again, drawing out the word this time while he tugs on one ear. "You could always, I don't know. Kiss me again."

Rose stares at him in shock. "As for example," he finishes, and is he _blushing_?

Despite herself, Rose laughs, a good proper laugh this time. From any other bloke, the statement would have been wildly inappropriate—wait, no, that's still what it is, that's exactly what it is right now, with everything that's just happened—but she can't find it in herself to be angry, somehow. Instead there's just surprise.

(And maybe just the faintest amount of curiosity. Just the faintest, littlest, tiniest bit.)

"Have you always been such a cad and I just never knew?" she asks.

"You never asked."

Swinging her foot, and the Doctor's by proxy, Rose chuckles under her breath. "And would that kiss be a prize for you, or for me?"

His responding grin is unbearably slow, and very nearly the loveliest thing Rose has ever seen. "Yes," he replies.

She's not half-tempted to take him up on it, to bridge what little distance there is between them and press her lips to his, hungrily, drowning them both in a kiss until they just forget every awful thing that's happened today. But Rose shakes the thought away (though she's sure it will creep back later, sure as the flush blossoming lazily up the back of her neck).

"Doctor," she says, hesitantly, "was it a bad thing, me trying to come back? Am I…"

She cringes. "…clingy?"

"Oh, terribly," replies the Doctor, drily.

"I'm serious."

"So am I. After all, I certainly didn't do everything within my considerable power to find you again. Surely didn't waste any time looking for holes between universes that I knew for a fact weren't there. Definitely didn't blow up a star just for a last handful of minutes together."

A pause. "And if Donna wakes up and mentions anything about a certain shirt of yours living in the console room for an unforgiveable amount of time, do me a favor and ignore her."

"Then—did I do something wrong?"

His brow furrows in concern. "No."

"So why…"

Rose swallows, hard. Her heart jackhammers so violently against her ribcage and stomach that she feels like she might throw up. "So why doesn't he want me anymore?"

"You can't honestly think that's true."

Rose masks her sniff with a watery chuckle. "It certainly feels true."

"Rose."

She buries her face in her hands, the heels of her palms digging into her eyes until lights pop in her vision. Feet shift noisily in the water, _slip-slap-slop_ and the Doctor's ankle is no longer entangled with hers, and the fabric of his suit-trousers whispers quietly against the ground as he turns toward her. Fingers gently wrap around her wrists, pulling her hands away from her face until she can see him watching her. She forces herself not to look away, to hold his gaze, to ignore the telltale pressure building up behind her sinuses.

"When I said—" the Doctor starts, and stops. "I—when I told you—"

He draws in a deep breath. "What I said earlier, on the beach? I meant it. And not just from me, all right? Not just this body. All of me."

Pausing, the Doctor searches her face for recognition. "Understand?"

Rose nods, licking her lips. She can't help but notice how the Doctor's eyes flicker downward, drawn to the motion. "You said you loved me."

"Yes, well." He drops her wrists, his hands settling uncomfortably on his thighs. "You said it first."

Rose makes a noncommittal noise. "Only cos I thought I was never gonna see you again."

"Mm-hmm. Admit it, Rose Tyler: you like me."

She shoots him a shaky smile. "Never," she says, but the effect is somewhat ruined by the word elongating into a yawn. Surprised, she covers her mouth to muffle the noise, but it's too late for that.

"Just out of curiosity, when did you last get some sleep?" the Doctor asks suspiciously.

Rose stretches her arms out behind her until her shoulders pop—god, that feels delicious. "Thought you thought sleep was a waste of time."

"Eh, I think I might be warming up to the idea of it, actually." The Doctor covers a yawn of his own, wrinkles his nose after. "I think I'll sort of have to."

"It's not so bad, sleeping every night. When you can, anyway."

"Have you been having trouble with it?"

Rose shrugs, stifling another yawn. "Just don't sleep like I used to, is all."

"Well, if you think it would help, you're welcome to—"

The Doctor cuts himself off midsentence, cheeks flushing a brilliant sunset-red. Rose wonders if she's ever seen his face color like that before.

"That is," he stammers, tugging on one ear, "We could—I mean, I know humans and, and co-sleeping…"

"Right," says Rose, her own face heating up as she cottons on. "Yeah, you're right, that's a…thing."

"It's just—we could, if you think it would help. Help you sleep, I mean."

"Yeah. Not like we haven't done it before. Sharing a bed," Rose adds quickly.

"For sleeping."

"Sleeping together, yeah." And now her cheeks are surely as hot as the surface of the sun. "I mean, both of us sleeping in the same bed, at the same time."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course."

Neither of them move to leave, though, both fidgeting awkwardly in the quiet. In some ways, Rose wants nothing more than to shed all these layers and just climb into bed with him, and they could just leave it at that. No, it would be enough to just wriggle comfortably into each other's embrace, her ear pressed to his chest, feeling the reassuring heartsbeat—or no, she remembers, it's _heartbeat_ now, singular—their ribcages expanding and compressing in unison until the sense of each other's breathing lulls them both to sleep.

(But that would be rushing things. Wouldn't it? Would it?)

"Or you could always go to your old room," the Doctor says hurriedly. "It's all still there, everything you left. Hasn't moved at all, hasn't changed, since—well, since the last time you were in there."

"Really?" asks Rose, surprised. "Huh."

"What?"

"I don't know, I guess I thought you would have cleaned it out, the way you always used to tease me about being such a slob. Or had the TARDIS chuck all my things out a chute or something."

The Doctor suddenly seems to find his hands in his lap to be terribly fascinating, judging by the way he watches them. "I couldn't," he admits quietly.

Rose doesn't know how to respond to that. She wonders, now, just how hard things have been for him—she knows he cares, of course she knows, she's not daft, but with all his many years and his endless roster of companions coming and going, would the loss of one more unspecial Earth girl really make that much difference? Is there any chance he could have mourned her loss like she did his? Did he rail bitterly against the unfairness of it all, did he curse the universe and everything in it, did he miss her like a grounded bird misses the sky?

If so—good grief. Rose's heart twists in her chest just at the thought.

On impulse, she leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek. And if she lingers just a second longer than necessary, breathing him in, mapping the texture of his stubble on her lips, well. She doubts he minds too much.

"Good night, Doctor," she murmurs. "And just so you know, even with everything…I'm so glad to be here with you again."

She doesn't know if she's ever seen him quite so shy, his smile so tender in the corners of his eyes. "Me too."

This time, Rose can't resist one last look at him before she leaves.

* * *

He's right; she reaches her room and it's exactly the way she remembers it, everything from the too-much-pink to the rumpled bedclothes to the laundry (both clean and not) scattered pell-mell across the bed and the chest of drawers and the floor (or "floordrobe" as the Doctor once called it, rolling his eyes the way he used to a lifetime ago). The room hasn't been disturbed by even a single dust mote, the mirror on her vanity as clean as it was the day she left, save a lipgloss-kiss she'd pressed to it the day before, when she'd wanted to blot the excess and couldn't find a tissue quickly enough.

Curious, she touches the shape of her own lips, and her fingertip comes back sticky and melon-pink. The lipgloss is still tacky to the touch, like it never properly dried. Like no time has passed here at all.

Rose doesn't even bother changing into any of the pajamas strewn about, just drops her boots and socks and shucks her jacket and climbs right into her old bed. She doesn't inhale the scent of her old duvet, not on-purpose, anyway, even though it hits her in waves, the soft barely-there imprint of whatever detergent the TARDIS uses. She doesn't let herself think too much about how it smells so differently from the detergent her mother uses for Tony's things, doesn't dwell on how she'll never smell it again, a universe and a forever away.

She doesn't cry.


	5. chapter four

He isn't surprised by the shrieks that pierce the night air. If anything, he's surprised it took so long. He is, however, shocked at the sight of Rose, stumbling bleary-eyed into the galley, jacketless and bare-footed.

(Was she sleeping? Where? Just how tired is she?)

It's not like he forgot she was here—how could he?—but the fact that she's back onboard the TARDIS still gives him a jolt somehow, like plucking bacon straight out of the sizzling-hot frying-pan and managing to be astonished when it burns your hand.

"Can I help you?" the Doctor asks.

"Can't sleep. You?"

"Can't say I've tried."

Rose blinks at him, confused, eyes narrowed against the bright galley light. "Oh," she says, realizing. "You're—the other you."

The Doctor bites back the sarcastic response hiding behind his teeth. "That's right," he says instead, downing a gulp of his coffee. It's black, bitter, and it might as well be jet fuel. He grimaces. " _The other me_."

Another cry rings out, and Rose shivers, hugging herself against an invisible chill. "Actually, I wanted to ask—that isn't Donna, is it? Making that noise? She's…she's not in pain?"

The Doctor softens a bit at that despite himself. For all her claims of change, beneath that tough new battle-hardened exterior, Rose is still Rose—tender-hearted and compassionate, sometimes to a fault. Gods, he's missed that. She and Donna would have got on splendidly.

"No," he replies. "She's still in stasis. Can't feel a thing." He holds up his medscreen for Rose to see, the stats and figures from Donna's wrist transceiver blinking across the tablet surface. "I'll know the instant that changes, _if_ it changes."

Rose pales in horror at the sound of the next gut-wrenching shout. "Oh my god," she says, instantly alert, all traces of sleepiness evaporated in a millisecond. "The other Doctor—what's wrong with him?"

"Nothing's wrong, it's all to be expected." He swallows another mouthful of the tar in his mug and frowns in distaste. Dreadful stuff, coffee, but tea seems just a little too indulgent at the moment. "Time Lord memories in a human brain, remember? Or human enough, anyway."

"Is he gonna have the same trouble as Donna?"

"No, no, nothing like that. Got enough of my original genetic material to keep all his grey matter from leaking out." He drinks in a deep breath. "Now, the nightmares, on the other hand…"

He trails off, because Rose has got that look on her face, and maybe it's been a few years (or a few centuries, feels about the same), but he still knows that look, still knows it _exactly_ , the _someone-is-hurting-and-I've-gotta-do-something-about-it_ look. Which is a problem, because if he knows himself like he thinks he does—and unfortunately, a millennia is more than enough time to get to know yourself, your few good qualities and many, many flaws alike—this will not end well, not for anyone.

"Rose," the Doctor says warningly, but already she's padding out of the gallery, her footfalls echoing softly in the corridor.

The Doctor swears under his breath. "Wait," he says, louder, pushing up from the table so hard his chair slams to the tiles with a _thwack_. He sprints after her, but by the time he reaches the hall, Rose is already meters and meters off—she's faster than he remembers somehow, or is that just one more way that she's different from before?—and he shouts, "Just leave it alone, Rose. Trust me!"

Not the most brilliant choice of words at the end there, he thinks when she doesn't stop.

* * *

 _Fire, fire everywhere and—_

 _burning_

(red-hot white-hot iron and copper and pennies, steel, metallic and cold-boiling in his mouth)

 _Skin, bonding in nano-increments, cells knitting together over bones grown solid and if he could, he would double over with the pain of it, the unbearable hurt of becoming real_

" _What are you whinging about?" Harriet Jones asks, arms crossed over a gaping black hole in her chest. "At least you got a new heart out of all this."_

 _(_ real isn't how you are made _, said the skin horse,_ it's a thing that happens to you _)_

 _I'm sorry, he says, or tries to say, but he hasn't got a tongue yet, just rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth tearing the insides of newborn cheeks_

 _Laughter, and when he looks up again, past the blood-red haze clouding his fetal eyes, the Harriet-thing is grinning, skin stretched too-tight over a Halloween-store-parody of a skull. "Absolutely the same man," she says, words dripping with disgust_

and the faintest hint of something ruby-red—

" _I never asked for it," he spits out as soon as words can take form in his mouth. "I can't count you amongst my many sins."_

 _Curling in on himself, a ribbon that twists and cramps and contracts, muscles rippling under the skin; raw fingers scratch themselves bloody and reach stretch break into the_

 _(_ does it hurt _? asked the rabbit)_

 _(she opens her maw and entire galaxies float inside, suspended in midnight-black ink, rainbow-swirling like an oil slick)_

" _No, no," he begs (wheezes; throat is parched and cracked and dry; xtonic radiation is a cruel and cowardly bitch)_

(Please Susan please please please help)

" _What do you expect her to do?" asks Rose, circling a protective arm around his granddaughter (what's left of her, anyway, blurred and wet and staining Rose's shirt). "She's just as dead as the rest of them."_

 _Tear ducts form just in time for salt to well up in his eyes, burning his cheeks, holy water scorching clean in blistering trenches_

 _(galaxies dissolve one-by-one and he can_ hear feel smell taste _every one of them dying, rotting-sweet dead flowers dirty crumpled five-pound notes ash in his mouth)_

 _Hand new and complete and he reaches out but Donna is there instead, and he watches, helpless, as she falls in agonizing slow-motion; it would almost be funny except_ wait it is funny _he is laughing he is laughing he is laughing so hard he cries_ why can't he stop

 _crawls over to her prone body, crumpled on the grating, dying over scattered galaxy crumbs and sputtering embers and he turns her onto her back, and something black is where her eyes should be, overflowing and staining fire-red hair_

" _I didn't mean to," he chokes out, but she can't hear, the black stuff swells up in her nose and her mouth and her ears and it burns everywhere it touches, eating away at her skin and her hair and her cut-up leather jacket (and_ oh, the fit she would throw if she knew _)_

 _(_ it doesn't happen all at once _, said the skin horse,_ you become. it takes a long time _)_

 _(_ Doctor _, she says, and her voice sounds funny and far-away)_

" _No, no, not that," he pleads. "Anything else—"_

 _She turns what's left of her skeleton-face toward him and she screams_

* * *

" _Doctor_!"

Air sharp in his lungs like a knife and the Doctor can't get enough of it, gulping and choking until he thinks it might gash his throat.

"Shhh, you're okay, you're okay, it's just a nightmare, it isn't real—"

Hands on his chest, smaller than his but familiar, but they're gone, she's gone, all of her, and she's never—

Frantic knocking against his ribs and he wonders if he's ever been in a place so dark before, ever witnessed anything that ate the light like this. One of his hands slides beneath those on his chest, checking, and—yes, there it is. One heart, just the one. _Damn_.

"Doctor?" says the voice again, quieter this time. "Are you awake? Are you all right?"

Oh, god.

Impressions of the nightmare slowly fade, blinked away like the remnants of too-bright lights splashed across the backs of his eyelids, and the darkness in his room dissolves bit by aching bit. He can just make out the shape of someone else in his bed, silhouetted by the dim light leaking beneath his bedroom door. Too murky to make out any details, but she's haunted his subconscious long enough that he would know her anywhere, unmistakable in any form.

"Rose?" rasps the Doctor, his voice rough from shouting (crying?).

"Yeah," she says, fingers curling in his tee-shirt. "I'm here, with you. Remember? And everything's gonna be…"

The Doctor doesn't hear what she says next—blood rushes in his ears, pins-and-needles and a high-pitched whine and a thick _thump-thump-thumping_ ; cold sweat beads on his brow, and he fights the nausea threatening to wash over him. Forcing his breathing to slow, he pushes up in the bed. He can feel her staring at him, _feel_ her concern. Relief and embarrassment rise up in equal measure, searing-hot fluid in a thin-skinned blister.

"Please get out," he pants.

Her hands stall on his chest. "Doctor?"

"Please," he says, brokenly, knuckles scraping the tears from his cheeks. He curses himself for ever letting anyone see him like this, for ever allowing himself to be so shamefully pathetic. "You never should have—I don't need you here. Get out."

The Doctor can practically hear Rose's heart hardening at that.

Her next breath is tremulous, watery. "Fine."

The bed jostles with the force of her movement, bedclothes twisting as she crawls over them and gropes semi-blindly for the edge of the mattress, and the Doctor realizes she actually listened to him this time. Really, properly listened—and she's really, properly going. Now the panic rushes in, and the guilt, settling heavily at the pit of his stomach. _Please no please don't go please don't leave please_ …

"Wait," he calls hoarsely after her, but her feet have already reached the floor. "Rose—"

"No, it's fine. I've got it. Tell a girl _Get out_ enough times, eventually it gets through her thick skull."

He springs out of bed just in time to grab her hand before it can twist the doorknob. "Rose, stop. Please."

"Why? Planning to call up any other regenerations to come spit in my face?" she snaps, her back turned to him. "How about my first Doctor, the one who died on the Gamestation? Want to bring him on over so he can have a go at me, too?"

Her shoulders are tense, hard as flint as the Doctor places his hands on them, gently nudging her until she turns around to face him. Her entire body quakes beneath his touch and he suspects that, just like him, her shivering has got nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

"I fought so hard," she says plaintively, and the Doctor doesn't need to see or touch her face to know she's crying now. He can hear the tears thick in her voice, feel the sobs wracking her frame. "It's been years, Doctor, and I tried—I thought about trying, settling into a life over there, and I could've, there were times I wanted to, I had friends and my family and a good job and there were blokes and a girl and I could've—but I couldn't—not after all the things I did, and if you ever knew—and I just missed you so much, _god_ , I missed you, and I thought—if I tried hard enough—"

Laughing through her tears, Rose shivers even more violently. "God, I'm stupid."

"Not true," says the Doctor firmly.

"I am, though," she says with a sniffle. "I don't know what else I expected. I mean, it's not like I thought I'd come back and you'd scoop me up in your arms, or, I don't know, profess your eternal love for me, or whatever. I just thought, I hoped we could pick up where we'd left off, just the two of us, and Donna too if she wanted, back out in the stars, and I thought, maybe, one day, if I was really, really lucky, maybe you would—"

He cuts her off with a kiss.

She stiffens against him, body going rigid under his hands, and he knows he's being rude, or unfair, or possibly terribly unchivalrous; definitely something Donna would smack him for, and he wouldn't blame her. And it's messy, salty, wet, her tears viscous and sticky on Rose's cheeks and her lips and now on his as well. But it's warm, too, in a way that makes him dizzy, his chest expanding, his blood thrilling in his veins. And hopefully Rose can find it in herself to forgive him, because right now he just doesn't have the words. He can only hope, desperately, that his actions will speak loudly enough in their stead.

(And he would be lying if he said he hadn't been thinking about this since these eyes first saw her.)

Eventually Rose relaxes in his grip, pulling back with a soft gasp. "You don't have to do that," she mumbles.

"Do what?"

She thumbs the tears off her face. "Give me anything out of guilt. Just because you think I want it."

He nods. "All right."

He kisses her again.

A strained little whimper rises in Rose's throat and she snakes her arms around his neck and before he knows it, his arms are responding in kind, wrapping around her and pulling her body flush with his. She's still shaking but it's more of a buzz now, something he can sense in his skin, creeping into his skull like a rush of alcohol. His body floods with warmth as her tongue tentatively brushes his lower lip and a flash-vision pops into his mind, detailing how he could push her up against the door—

Suddenly he's gone a bit jellylike in the knees and the Doctor breaks the kiss with a shudder. The room feels like it's spinning around him.

(He's relieved to hear he's not the only one struggling to hide breaths gone ragged.)

"You…" Rose says, and swallows. "That's cheating."

"Never said I'd play fair," the Doctor replies, step-stumbling back until his legs hit the bed. He sits down, grateful for the support.

Rose doesn't budge from the door, so the Doctor holds out a hand—can she see it in the almost-black, can she tell he's reaching out for her?—and after a few horrible moments of nothing, her warm little palm slides along his. She lets him draw her in, and he has every intention of wrapping his arms around her again, comforting them both with a solid, lung-squeezing hug, so he's surprised when her hands reach out and cup his jaw, tilting his face upward. He wonders if, perhaps, her night-vision is better than his now, if she can see the nervousness and hope written across his features, but soon it's apparent she's seeing with her hands; her thumbs stroke the apples of his cheeks, tracing the edges of his sideburns and working up to his temples. His eyes flutter shut at her touch and he fights not to lean into it, like a cat. Fingers tangle in his hair and nails scratch lightly against his scalp and he can't stop the hum that escapes in response.

He pulls her down for another kiss and he doesn't mean it to be such a needy thing, so desperate and harsh and _hungry_ , but the way her lips part almost immediately makes him suspect she's every bit as starved as he is. She deepens the kiss and his tongue chases after hers. Dizzy with want, he clutches at her hips, he's just got to touch her somewhere, anywhere she'll let him, he needs to feel her, soft and solid and safe, but she's still so far away, still oceans and oceans between them—

The Doctor doesn't even try to hold back a sigh of relief when Rose clambers into his lap, pressing herself against him. The weight of her is warm and reassuring, the frantic _pit-pat-patter_ of her heart against his a welcome rhythm.

"I don't play fair either," says Rose, and she kisses him fiercely before he has a chance to reply.

* * *

Afterward, she slumps against him, panting. Eyes shuttering closed, he wraps his arms around her, losing himself in the gentle rise and fall of their chests as their breaths slowly calm. But eventually Rose stirs in his arms, sitting back on his lap; the Doctor imagines if he could see her face in better detail right now, her eyes would be glazed, blinking heavily. He suspects his are doing much the same.

He feels like he should say something, but his breathing is too thick to allow any words out of his mouth. At least, that's what he tells himself; the truth is, he's still too stunned by the idea of Rose sitting in his lap to really register anything that's happening right now, or anything that's happened in the last few minutes, for that matter. A not-unpleasant buzzing sound has filled his head, pairing nicely with the numb feeling suffusing him below the waist, and it's just a bit difficult to think past it all.

Rose wriggles off his lap, both of them wincing, and she walks off toward his en suite, fumbling for the light-switch in the dark. Soon she finds it (impressive, considering she's never been in here before) and searing yellow-white light lances the Doctor's vision, blinding him with its brightness. Moments later, the Doctor is surprised by the sensation of something soft hitting him in the face. He blinks out the light, confused, pulling a flannel from where it fell in his lap.

"Figured you might want to clean up," Rose says from the doorway to the en suite. She's not wrong, and oddly considerate—but something about her sudden frankness and neutral tone sets panic thrumming in the Doctor's system all over again.

She's not just going to up and leave after all that, right? Surely she wouldn't?

The door to the en suite closes, leaving the Doctor alone in the darkness once again, frozen. Slowly, amidst the sounds of flushing and washing-up, he tidies up. The fresh, clean flannel is a blessing on his skin, but it isn't enough to soothe the anxiety roiling in his skull, especially when the light turns back off and Rose comes out and, quietly, heads straight for the bedroom door. The Doctor wants to ask her to stay, but the words seem wrong, somehow, almost childish, and at any rate, they're stuck in his throat.

Hand on the doorknob, Rose hesitates. "Did I push you?" she asks, her voice small.

"No," he answers quickly, thankful that his tongue finally works again. "No, not at all."

She sighs in relief. "And you, erm. Would you rather I left you al—"

"No."

Another sigh. "Good."

The mattress dips beneath her weight as Rose crawls back into the bed, and, his weary brain just a bit slow on the uptake, the Doctor follows after, sure to leave a respectable amount of space between them, just in case Rose wants it. But he soon learns he needn't have worried; the second his head hits the pillow, Rose snuggles up against him, tucking her head beneath his chin and insinuating one leg between his. Surprised, but nonetheless pleased, the Doctor pulls her into his embrace, wondering how in the universe he managed to be the lucky sod she's curled up against tonight.

"It's not your fault, you know," Rose mutters sleepily into his chest.

The Doctor startles out of his thoughts. "Hm?"

"What happened to Donna. It's not your fault."

It's stupid, really, how quickly the tears spring up behind his eyes. He grits his teeth until the pressure fades, his fists clenching tightly in Rose's tee-shirt. He has half a mind to untangle himself from her, to get up out of the bed and throw open the doors of the TARDIS and scream at the universe until his voice grows hoarse and his throat bloody, but the other half of his mind gently points out how Rose's breathing has already evened out, how relaxed her entire body is next to his, how warm and soft she is in his arms. How she's here, with him, now, despite everything.

With a tired exhale, he nuzzles into Rose's hair. Fruity shampoo, expensive perfume, the faintest tinge of chemicals from her hair dye all greet him; marveling at how natural it all feels, the two of them close and quiet like this, he breathes it in, committing it to memory, just in case. He closes his eyes and, inch by inch, lets himself loosen.

She's wrong about Donna, of course. But it was still nice of her to say.

* * *

Author's Note: Quotes from the Rabbit and the Skin Horse during the Doctor's nightmare are taken from Margery Williams' "The Velveteen Rabbit".


End file.
